How the year does fly by! Thinking back to January 2020 when I was setting my goals for the year ahead looks like eons ago now! That was our world pre-covid 19. The pandemic took us all by surprise and the best made plans in many cases were no longer possible. As I write we will soon be starting into the 4th quarter of 2020. This is a great time of the year to stop and reflect and do some planning for the last three months of the year. It’s time now to set great goals for quarter 4 2020. September for many of us is a time of new beginnings. Many schools and colleges open after the summer break and people get down to work again after their summer holidays. In this article I want to give you some key pointers on the why and how of setting great goals for quarter 4 2020.
There are no facts about the future!
Even if 2020 has not been a great year for you so far and those new year’s resolutions are just a distant memory, you can change everything in your life for the better over the next three months. There are no facts about the future – everything is possible!
Why do we need goals?
This an important question and I explain this in the lecture below. This lecture is taken from my goal setting 101 course.
Some key planning tips
Be very clear about the Why. What is your vision for your life? What is your life’s purpose (ikigai or hedgehog concept)? Really know why you want to achieve your goals. Engage with your Why emotionally.
Set clear goals – they must be SMART.
Break your goals down into achievable chunks.
Watch out for the pitfalls of goal setting such as tunnel vision.
Use powerful tools such as visualisation, affirmations and mind movies to turbo charge your goal setting.
Learn how to conduct an effective After Action Review.
Knowing about the above tips without acting on them in your life is not enough (it’s only 10% – the real work is implementing these goals setting tips in your life)
Learn about these goal setting strategies and more in my Goal Setting 101 Course. By the way the courses includes 16 practical assignments because action is key to success (again knowing is only 10% progress).
Best wishes,
Tom
If you need goal setting inspiration and would like set clear goals for the remainder of 2020 you are invited to sign up to my complete goal setting course (lecture 2 above). You can get lifetime access to the course for $12.99 using this link. There is a no questions asked 30 day money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. Click the link to get more details and watch the free preview. Offer expires on 10/21/2020 22:10 PM PDT (GMT -7). I look forward to seeing you on the course! Check out all my courses here.
I hope you are keeping well wherever you are in the world. I am going to get to the goal setting course later in this blog post but first I want to give you my Covid-19 update.
As I write this I am under lock-down in Ireland due to the Covid-19 Pandemic. We are now heading into our 11th week since the schools and colleges closed on Thursday March 12th. Our national holiday celebrations on St. Patrick’s Day, 17th March were cancelled. On March 27th, Ireland was placed on full lock-down with all non-essential journeys banned for two weeks. Of course the lock-down was extended and as I write this (May 24th 2020) we are still under lock-down. Easter celebrations were cancelled. We stayed at home for two bank holiday weekends in May and June. Bars, restaurants, hotels, churches, sporting clubs and activities etc were closed/cancelled. The Irish government required us not to leave our homes except for essential journeys such as to buy food or medicine. We were allowed only exercise within 2kms of our homes.
Is this really happening?
When I reflect back on what I have outlined above it all seems surreal and like something from a novel or a film script. Restrictions are starting to be eased gradually. For example we can now travel up to 5km from our homes to exercise. More shops have been allowed to re-open such as hardware stores. We are currently on a pathway to a phased re-opening of the country over the next few months provided the virus does not re-surge.
Those less fortunate
On a personal level I have been fortunate to date in that I still have work and my children can still continue their education using digital platforms while the schools and colleges are closed. I am also very conscious that we are far more fortunate in Ireland than in many other less well off parts of the world because we have government supports such as income support, if needed, to help us as we are confined to our homes. In less developed parts of the world people have been under lock-down without even food/income (parts of India for example). In other countries the lock-down has been brutal with people being beaten and shot dead in some African countries (e.g. Kenya and Nigeria). For millions of people around the world the pandemic has so far brought death, sickness, hunger, poverty and lost earnings, business failure and stress. My sympathy goes to all those affected by the pandemic so far.
None of us know what is around the corner but I think it is important that we all do our best now to set goals around self-education, building new skills for the future and preparing for a world changed by this pandemic.
My Goal Setting Course Update
I just want to you give an update on my new goal setting course which I have now completed (finally!) and which is live on the Udemy platform. The lock-down is a great time for you to get crystal clear your own life’s purpose, the direction you want to take into the future and the skills your need to acquire. This is a great time to build new skills but you must be clear on what you want first and who you want to become. You then need to know how to set great goals to take you from where you are now to where you want to be.
Course description
Many people set goals and perhaps you also set goals for yourself. The question is how effective are those goals? How compelling and inspiring are your goals? What is your success rate on goal achievement? According to U.S. News & World Report, the failure rate for New Year’s resolutions is said to be about 80 percent, and most give up on their new year goals by mid-February. The good news is that effective goal setting is a learned skill that we can all acquire and improve upon. None of us can afford to take goal setting for granted. This course will show you how to set compelling and life transforming goals that will bring out the very best in you and take you life in a new and exciting direction of your own choosing. You have the power to make your life whatever you want it to be through effective goal setting. This course is action orientated and by the end of the course you will have set up to three key long term goals to propel your own life forward in new and exciting directions. Don’t wait until new year to set effective goals. You can set goals any time of year. Also don’t assume that you know everything about goal setting already. Even experienced goal setters can benefit by renewing and constantly refining their goal setting skills.
Enroll Now
You are welcome now to enroll on my Goal Setting course . I would appreciate if you leave a review of the course and and if possible you could send me some feedback on what you liked and what could be improved etc.
As for myself I have already started work on my next course. A change of tack this time as I return to another favourite topic of mine: beekeeping. In fact it’s a wonderful time of year to be making that course because it gets me out into nature and I am enjoying every minute. That is as might be expected because course creation is aligned with my own personal hedgehog concept or ikigai. If you want to find out what I mean by that please enroll for the course!
Stay safe and well.
Tom
PS Please also check out my other course which is very relevant to this blog post – Future Skills 2030 – Prepare for the 4th Industrial Revolution. Start planning today for the skills you need to stay relevant in this fast changing world. Special offer $13.00 – Offer Expires 06/24/2020 04:06 AM PDT (GMT -7)
